


Where The Bleak Yellow Light Doesn't Reach

by Nununununu



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (Or Not Recovering), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Doing Horrible Things (Maybe) For The Greater Good, Don't copy to another site, Gen, He Who Fights Monsters, Injury, It's Not Personal (It's Personal), Post-Canon, Recovering from Trauma by Murdering the Appropriate People, Revenge, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 10:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22394482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: Cassian wakes in medbay to the certainty the rest of Rogue One didn’t survive.He's right.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Writing Rainbow Yellow





	Where The Bleak Yellow Light Doesn't Reach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).



> While CNTW, just in case trigger warning for actions that could be construed as suicidal (deliberately endangering self/not doing anything to prevent this).
> 
> (Date adjusted for author reveal; originally posted 29/01)

Cassian wakes in medbay to the certainty the rest of Rogue One didn’t survive.

He's right.

The medics speak only of his injuries in hushed, careful tones. He thinks of requesting that a medical droid oversee the treatment he can’t avoid instead, but – no. He holds himself silently and steadily when one passes by on the way to someone worse off than he is, and thinks of nothing. There are many people worse off than he is. He formulates a schedule for the shortest period of recovery that will be considered acceptable and moves his mouth in a facsimile of appropriate sadness during the mandatory therapy sessions, and lies.

He lies and lies, and keeps on lying. It’s always been one of his greatest skills.

Discharging himself three weeks earlier than his hacked file suggests he stay, Cassian leaves medbay and returns to his assigned room. The small size of it has never bothered him. He never invited any of his team into it aside from K-2SO, who had to duck. Cassian looks about for a task to do and finds nothing, and does not let himself wonder why the space now seems too large.

He demands a meeting with Draven, who refuses and orders him back to medbay. Cassian slips into the room Mon Mothma is finishing an information session in for new recruits instead.

The new recruits startle and ease past him uncertainly. Cassian does not allow his fingers to tighten in the shape of the head of the walking stick he refuses to use, and nor does he allow the jolt of pain his still healing leg gives to show when he alters his weight. Such things are negligible, after all.

“Captain Andor,” Mon Mothma is welcoming yet sorrowful, swallowing hurt gracefully as she gently informs him of the details of his team’s deaths.

He doesn’t need the gentleness. What he does need is the information that Orson Krennic also survived.

There are faint gouges on the surface of the table they sit at, as if an organic dug their nails into it at some point when told bad news. Cassian doesn’t look at them. If they make him think of Jyn Erso, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

Mon Mothma doesn’t mention any disciplinary measures for the actions of Rogue One.

“You’ve suffered enough,” she does not say, although it is visible in her gaze.

This isn’t suffering, Cassian does not respond. Instead he thanks Mon Mothma for her time and demands a meeting with Draven.

Draven refuses. Apparently Cassian is still off active duty.

He cannot be off active duty. He subtly wrangles the roster until he is placed within strategic analysis for the time he is forced to remain on base. His injured leg almost falters when he reports for his first assigned shift, for reasons he does not contemplate; having a reaction to the mere location K-2SO used to work is ridiculous.

Compensating for the pain requires little enough attention and the mind-numbing task of shifting through data for six hours is adequately repaid when he catches a mention of Krennic.

The shift manager praises him for his diligence when he works overtime every day for a standard week after that. Then they refuse to permit him to do so any further. Cassian steadily adds to the cache of information he is building up about the Director and the handful of Imperial troopers and technicians who escaped Scarif alongside the man.

The time he doesn’t spend hacking the Alliance’s database and probing contacts for further information regarding Darth Vader and the Death Star plans, Cassian makes himself go down to the hangar and requisition a ship. 

It is a banged-up old useless thing nobody wants anymore. No one protests when he takes to yanking out wires and attempting to forge new connections, although every pilot and technician who offers an opinion is of the belief that the ship will never work.

The hangar is never empty, so he endures such overtures and makes suitably humorous replies. If he doesn’t join in the laughter, it is not out of character and nobody thinks anything of it, as such.

Never one for sleep, Cassian doesn’t tend to attempt trying. He also doesn’t think of how Bodhi would complete the repairs in half the time or make innovative suggestions, or how Chirrut would probably have some remark to make about the difficulty of creating conduits out of nothing in comparison to sensing the Force. Baze would be rolling his eyes in the background and –

No.

“I’m not letting you go,” Draven tells him, when Cassian has got the ship running on willpower and not much else, and a list of names and locations memorised.

“I’m not asking you to,” Cassian returns and tries a smile that can’t be as successful as the one he gave the therapist, as the other man grimaces.

He is still grimacing when Cassian details all the ways in which his self-assigned mission will benefit the Alliance, but does not argue it, because it is true.

Cassian leaves the base before the next dawn. The ship doesn’t attract suspicion, although he is forced to evade scavengers. Flying alone is something he has done frequently in the past, so there should be no reason for the cockpit to seem as if it echoes.

He naps in the co-pilot’s chair when he has to, and doesn’t enter the living quarters.

Orson Krennic is easy to find and even easier to kill. Cassian doesn’t waste energy evading when the troopers surrounding the fallen Director fire back, but simply picks them off one by one.

He doesn’t let himself recall the only time he decided not to take a shot.

The silence doesn’t echo when he returns to the ancient ship and, if he feels hollow, it is only because he has no time for appetite. He checks the names off his mental list and compares the locations of the other survivors of Scarif, with other key figures whose removal would greatly aid the Rebellion.

Contacting the base one-way with a cursory update, he conceals the ship and goes undercover as a minor Imperial official keen to work his way up the ladder. For every individual he pursues with a connection to Scarif, he concentrates on three unrelated others first, as proof it is neither revenge nor personal.

This is one of the first lies he doesn't succeed in telling himself, but it doesn’t matter.

Cassian has crossed off the majority of the original names on his ever expanding list when the Alliance contacts him on a highly classified channel with an urgent request he return to base.

If he returns to base, he won’t be able to complete his mission. If he returns to base, he won’t be able to investigate Vader's background satisfactorily or undermine Tarkin or pick the Empire apart person by person. 

He won't be able to close his eyes and stop seeing the ruined faces of his dead teammates; friends –

Family.

This is war. Such a concept is unimportant.

Such a concept is the most important thing he has ever known. Alongside or above the Rebellion?

This isn’t a question Cassian ever thought he would find difficult to answer. And yet, as he stands on a barren hill where the bleak yellow light of the system's distant star doesn't reach and tightens his finger on the trigger as a pleading retired minor Imperial aide seeks to convince him they had nothing to do with the Death Star or Scarif, the urgent request from the Alliance starts over on repeat in his hidden earpiece –

And he feels what could be a small measure of peace or else just emptiness as he raises his free hand to discover whether he will remove it or respond.


End file.
